“Ball uchhalti hui kahan ja rahi ho, bat to mere paas hai“. These are the words that a glad-eyed Gajendra Chauhan suggestively throws at the heroine of Jungle Love --one of the few films he has had any substantial role in.

When the agitation over
his appointment as chairman of FTII Pune began raging last month, the Mahabharat-fame actor made this statement in his defence: “I have experience of 34 years in the industry. I would like
to share that for the better.“

TOI went through some of that experience and found Chauhan was not lying about his credentials.His career began in TV and Bollywood in the early 1980s, much before he played the role of Yudhisthir in B R Chopra's epic series Mahabharat in 1988.
Chauhan has worked in
over 50 films where his roles have ranged from cameos --in mainstream films such as Baghban and International Khiladi --to rather `meaty' ones in Khuli Khidki and Vasna.

In the 1989 film Khuli Khidki, which came immediately after Mahabharat
made Chauhan a revered figure nationwide, the current FTII chairman hogs maximum screen space as the promiscuous villain. In scene after scene, he is seen disrobing one woman after another as the protagonist of the story, a peeping Tom who watches through a window.

Some of his other notable appearances on the big screen include films such as Jungle Love, Jungle Queen, Jungle ka Beta, Jungle Hero, Bhayanak Panja and Rupa Rani Ramkali.

In the 1990 film Jungle Love --a Tarzan movie
--Chauhan plays a westernstyle gunslinger in search of a hidden treasure. He dies 35 minutes into the film from snake bite after attempting to rape Jane. His lascivious advances had already been spurned by Jane in classic Bollywood style.

He dies earlier than the other bad guys in Rupa Rani Ramkali too. A titillating tale of a rebel woman, the film sees Chauhan, as a bumbling and corrupt sarpanch, being hanged as the first victim of dancer-turned-dacoit Ramkali.

Despite several attempts, TOI could not trace several of Chauhan's films in which he had his character well `fleshed' out. Perhaps, no one bothered to preserve these classics that may well have hogged the shelf reserved for cult films like Mithun-starrer Gunda.